The GTA got its latest health report card, and it’s not making the honour roll.

The GTA got its latest health report card, and it’s not making the honour roll.

Statistics Canada has released its biennial health indicator survey, which polled people 12 and over on various healthy (or unhealthy) habits, like smoking cigarettes or wearing bicycle helmets.

“Eat your veggies!” is a common command for little tykes, but it looks like some grown-ups aren’t listening. Fewer people got their five servings of produce a day in 2012 than in 2010.

So it should come as no surprise that the number of people who reported being obese or overweight increased in all five Local Health Integration Networks, or LHINs. More than half the residents of Central West, Central East and Mississauga reported being overweight or obese on the Body Mass Index.

The study surveyed people by LHIN, which have different boundaries than municipalities. The GTA contains five LHINs: Central, Toronto Central, Central West, Central East and Mississauga Halton. Some of the findings:

<bullet>Binge drinking declined in many parts of GTA, but Mississauga Halton and Toronto Central — which includes the city centre from Islington Ave. to Warden Ave. and parts of North York — are still party hot spots.

About 20 per cent of people from Toronto Central and Mississauga Halton reported regularly drinking five or more drinks in one sitting.

Dean Odorico, general manager at Woody’s on Church St, said it’s the youth who give Mississauga and Toronto a party-hearty reputation. “Young people tend to drink more,” he said.

Despite a barrage of public health campaigns and smoking bans, cigarette use is on the rise everywhere except Mississauga Halton and Toronto Central. People in Toronto Central reported a 17-per-cent decrease in daily smoking, yet occasional smoking increased.

Jill Cressy, community health co-ordinator at the University of Toronto, said these bad habits reveal a deeper problem. “I feel that stress is a big number one (motive)” for poor health choices, she said.

<bullet>Despite increasing concerns for cyclist safety, many riders still don’t always wear a helmet. While the majority of Toronto Central cyclists, 54 per cent, strapped one on, rates plummeted in the suburbs.

Only a third of riders in Mississauga Halton always wore a helmet.

“It’s just ignorance, they just don’t know any better,” said Ira Kargel, co-owner of Gears in Mississauga. Kargel said there must be more public education or, better yet, a law requiring adults to wear a helmet.

“It’s exactly like a seatbelt,” she said.

Most mothers — between 88 and 98 per cent — will try breastfeeding their infants. But in all five LHINs, exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months, which is what Health Canada recommends, was far rarer. (Statistics Canada recommends that we use this data with caution, due to the possibility of sampling errors.)

“The majority of mothers do in fact wish to breast feed,” said Olga Jovkovic, manager at Toronto Public Health. But women may stop because they find it uncomfortable or lack community support, she said.

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